March 21, 2011

As students, teachers, researchers, and workers at UW-Madison we ask you to gather with us tomorrow, Monday, March 21st at noon to show your solidarity against this massive attack on public eduction and labor in the state of Wisconsin. Our plan is to quietly congregate and publicly perform our role as teachers and employees of the university, so participate by bringing your grading or other work. We will meet in the rotunda at Bascom Hall in order to promote our status as graduate student workers committed to accessible public education and the fair employment practices guaranteed by collective bargaining rights. Bascom is the home to University Administration, Faculty Senate, and PROFS, and thus serves as a symbolic space where we can convey our persistent dedication to this struggle to KILL THE BILL.

Bring your lunch, bring your work, and wear your TAA shirt tomorrow. Help us keep labor visible, and remind the campus that the UNIVERSITY WORKS BECAUSE WE DO!

This looks like a job for New Media Meade.

UPDATE: At 12:04, per Meade: "Fewer than 12 people waiting for TA Godot." "Two are grading blue books."

UPDATE 2: At 12:15: 30 people now. Plus, an iPhone photo:

The sign says: "Productive Protesters/Grad Students Working for the Cause."

UPDATE 3: Earlier someone said, "I'm here for the pizza," and now Ian's Pizza has delivered. Text: "Meade eschewing communist pizza." Nobody has run him out of town yet.

UPDATE 4: "I believe this may be a trial occupation." Later: "If this is an occupation, it's lame. More like a study hall or 30 person study date." Also (with typical Meadhouse Dylan reference): "People walking through not in group must step over TAs sitting in doorways blocking up the halls/Hope no one stalls." I get it... Don't criticize what you can’t understand...

Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand

1. Take video of protesters and mock them.2. Carol says the number of protesters is dwindling.3. Other disciples mock them in both creative and non-creative ways.4. Someone may or may not say you guys are brave or great.5. Repeat.6. Repeat.7. Repeat.

Spring break's over. The heavy load work, studying for finals, and preparing the written stuff, has hardly just begun. So, it's a guess on my part that the professors won't force any of the kids to take a test right away.

Yup. Professors do that. And, grades come back really low. But at the end of the term the professor says: "You can eliminate the results on one of your exams." Whatever.

I don't think this rally will change anything. The unions didn't get what they wanted. And, today, one of the flee-baggers put in a law that you don't need 20 for a quorum, in Wisconsin. Because the democraps don't want this "event" to become a useful tool for republicans. Go figa.

As has been stated in previous threads, the idea of an organization to "protect" the rights of Teaching Assistants is laughable.

Sure some are quite good at what they do, useful and cost effective but the idea of joining up with my fellow TA's to make sure we had good insurance and working conditions would have been unthinkable. Graduate and get a real job, should be all you care about.

Bring your lunch, bring your work, and wear your TAA shirt tomorrow. Help us keep labor visible, and remind the campus that the UNIVERSITY WORKS BECAUSE WE DO! This looks like a job for New Media Meade.

Waaaaait, a minute. Is there a paragraph or a space missing here, or did these labour dillweds really write, "This looks like a job for New Media Meade"??

"Sure some are quite good at what they do, useful and cost effective but the idea of joining up with my fellow TA's to make sure we had good insurance..."

Health care - important. I know somebody who got a brain tumor while in his twenties. He didn't have insurance as a TA and was destroyed financially for years.

I know somebody else who gave birth and there were some problems with the meconium. Everything was fine, but the baby was in the ICU for a few days. Very, very expensive, but they had insurance because of the union. So they only paid 6,000$ instead of much, much more. (Or trying to give birth at home to save money.)

Kill Bill Vol. 2 is coming in time for spring. But the Samurai Union members are all busy at home doing reactor meltdown duty. So the Wisconsin Sumo Union will need to waddle out in their place and play politics. That Is Entertainment!

@Canuck Yeah I understand, its a benefit that helps being able to get TAs, etc. My point is its a luxury for someone in that type of job to have any real benefits so all things considered, paying more for it, is hardly going to generate much sympathy.

I was a TA and I consider the position to be financial aid/internship, not a job. It's a pretty good gig if you look at with that lens.

If I was a student who was getting graded by one of these people protesting, just how comfortable am I with that? Is the TA giving my paper/test his full attention while hanging in the rotunda? If my paper is on a controvesial subject, will the TA be in his professional mindset, or his union activist mindset, when he reads a thesis that he may viscerally disagree with but is well constructed? Or (and this is probably the case), will nothing get done and the TA will then rush through his task after spending too long procrastinating?

"Is the TA giving my paper/test his full attention while hanging in the rotunda?"

I doubt it's much different then going to a coffee shop to grade. (Or grading in TA cubical & crowded shared offices.) Actually, it's probably more productive then grading alone with the TV as a distraction.

In terms of health care - many TAs in the US have only gotten health care plans because they unionized. (Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa) I think a university should provide a health care plan that employees can buy into. I don't think it's morally right not offer any health care benefits. I also think health benefits attracts better grad students.

Oh - I just realized that people might have a misconception about what the TAA group is worried about.

They aren't worried that they will have to pay MORE for health care. They are worried that their health care will be taken away entirely.

Until TA's in the US organized, TAs and Grad Instructors generally didn't have any health care plan to buy into. In the 1970s and 1980s when grad programs got people through faster (4 years) that didn't matter as much. People got out of school younger and healthier.

Now average time to completion is much longer and the schools depend more on TAs to teach classes to save money. Health care is more important.

Shouldn't they be opposed to the Unions that support the power structure that keeps them overworked and underpaid pseudo-slaves, working insane hours for a stipend for the chance of someday possibly joining the Elite?

It'd be interesting to see support or attendance broken down by area of study, as well.

(Want to bet that the hard science or applied science/engineering students are exactly the ones who don't show? I would.)

@Victoria Check the indentation. The block text ends. The last line is mine. Meade said he preferred to be thought of more like the Lone Ranger, but I said it was the Superman line that popped into my head.

I was a TA in the late 1990s, no union, no health care insurance, but I did get free private-school tuition plus a stipend large enough I didn't need to take out student loans.

With regard to length of study, the university I attended did have the problem of people taking forever to get through. There were tons of dead-weight grad students on the 10 year plan. It was killing the program because people wouldn't leave and they kept sucking up fellowships, etc.

So they changed the way they did things. People entering the program know they are eligible for Grad assistantships, fellowships, etc. for five years. Then if you are not done, then feel free to enroll in dissertation credit but its on your dime. The result, since this program was implemented, the number of PhD's granted has gone up, the number placed in tenure-track positions has gone up and the number who have published has gone up.

Never make something that is supposed to be temporary so comfortable that people will never want to leave.

"Never make something that is supposed to be temporary so comfortable that people will never want to leave."

My point of view is different. A friend got brain cancer while he was a TA.

Fluke, yes - but it happens. These schools are not giving grad students charity. Many universities require TAs and grad instructors to operate within their current budget. Grad students are often expected to teach their own courses without any supervision. It's a cost-saving measure.

Now if schools want to hire full time faculty to teach students, I would approve.

But if universities are going to use TAs to make their budgets work, they should at least offer a health plan for them to buy into. (And schools don't have to pay any social security benefits for TAs or grad instructors. It's a deal for the schools.)

Your point to Jim Shankman was very well taken! We live in the Internet age. And, any employer who would see some activist student, wouldn't be so impressed with the credential. And, it's a tough jobs market out there.

I walked by Bascom at about 12:40. Thought about stopping in to say hi to Meade, but there seemed to be no one around--anywhere--so I figured he'd probably left by then! I'm really amazed that so few people showed up at this event. They must have been upset that their plotting and scheming has all dried up post-break.

Canuck: Should the union get liability insurance for the TAs? I once knew a TA who was in a car wreck, his fault, and he really hurt some people and was sued and lost. He didn't have insurance. Also knew one whose house was flooded and he didn't have flood insurance so maybe we could include that as well. Lot's can happen and there is no reason a TA should have to think of all those things him/herself when the union could do it for him/her. What about disability, because you could screw your carpals up grading papers or writing the syllabus. Lot to think about. Dangerous and mind numbing labor.

Your unfortunate anecdote should not and can not drive an entire system. If it makes sense to offer health insurance, then offer it, if it doesn't it doesn't. Personnaly tragic anecdotes, while they may inform a person's individual point of view, hold little weight in a rationale discussion that requires more substantial arguement.

With regard to your other point, get rid of the concept of tenure and watch the life of grad students and adjuncts improve.

In the 2003 case of Virginia v. Black, the Supreme Court ruled that "those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals" do not enjoy First Amendment protection.

I think Shankman may well have committed a crime. I don't think you two should just let it go. It's a crime!

All of you saying that grading requires intense focus are obviously not TAs. I teach composition and grading papers is a lot like doing math problems, or solving a crossword puzzle. You judge whether students meet a standard, choose a grade, and write 5-6 sentences of end comments, which becomes quite automatic. I would need much more concentration to, say, read something in my field.